As a screenwriter, there are a few ways to get your script sold and—possibly—made into a movie. Screenwriting contests have emerged as a way for unknown writers to get their name out there, but this requires either winning the contest or placing very high, and more than likely having to do it in multiple contests to get noticed. If you have the money and are a director as well as a writer, you can go the indie route, but providing you get the movie made, there is no guarantee of any kind of distribution. The most traditional way for a screenwriter to get his or her work sold and made into a movie is by getting an agent.

The first step is to find an agent. Agents, by virtue of their occupation, are well connected and can help a screenwriter immensely. If you find representation, this helps you out because an agent is supposed to only have talented writers as their clients, enhancing your reputation, while using theirs in the process. An agent should not charge anything unless they’ve sold your script.READ MORE:

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ON MUSIC IN FILM:

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” ~ Victor HugoREAD MORE:

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ON WRITING:

dawnspitfire.wordpress.com

“Energy & Words is a unique process for writers to generate new work at a deeper, more vital level, and create more emotionally resonant writing, as well as to liberate and maximize one’s creative potential: body balancing (mild physical movement to balance the body’s energy); meditation (a variety of focused meditations and techniques intended to clear the mind, and ready participants for active creation); writing (taking creative advantage of the ideas that surface during meditation); and sharing (both the work created and the ways in which it has surfaced). This process liberates and gives voice to one’s memories, passions and observations, and moves one from the spontaneous self-expression of a first draft or journal to the careful crafting of written communication that may be a poem, story, screenplay, essay, or drama. Clarity and intention mark the work that is generated in this way!”
~ Pit Pinegar,www.pitpinegar.com

“Flying unmanned aircraft in violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations is illegal and can be dangerous,” FAA Administrator, Michael Huerta, said in a statement. The Federal Aviation Administration requires a 333 exemption. You can file online.

But even with the 333 exemption, your drone pilot needs to actually be a pilot. And to have at least a sport pilot’s license. While we expect this requirement to be modified when the FAA updates its rules, for now… it’s the law.

Do Not Fly Within Five Miles of an Airport: There is a useful app called “Hover”. You can download it from the App Store. It’s free and it will show you your proximity to an airport.

Drone Flights for Fun: If you are flying a small drone just as a hobby, and do not use the footage for any commercial purpose, you may be exempt from most of the above. You will still need to register your drone and you still can’t fly within five miles of any airport.

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES:

No. 1 on the best-seller list for non-fiction, In TheHidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben shares his deep love of woods and forests and explains the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in the woodland and the amazing scientific processes behind the wonders of which we are blissfully unaware. Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group.

As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group. Trees in the forest are social beings.

They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots. In nature, trees operate less like individuals and more as communal beings. Working together in networks and sharing resources, they increase their resistance.

MOONDANCE RECCOMENDS & SUPPORTS

CREATIVE SYRIAN REFUGEES TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS!

One of the many tragic aspects of the Syrian conflict is the wanton destruction of its irreplaceable architectural and historic treasure. No one feels that loss more acutely than the Syrians who were forced to leave their country, but who have never stopped loving it. Concerned about what they might find when they are able to return home, a very talented group of refugees took matters — literally — into their own hands. Thanks to their ingenuity and industry, a community center in Za’atari has become an exhibit hall where models of destroyed, damaged or threatened sites are displayed. They use whatever materials they can find — discarded wood and plastics, local stone and clay, even wooden kebab skewers.

The plains bison is the largest land mammal in North America. Tens of millions of these iconic animals once roamed across much of North America. Right now, Yellowstone National Park is the premiere site for bison restoration in the US. However, there are restrictions in place that force park officials to kill bison when the herd count gets higher than 3,000 and bison leave the park.

Fort Peck tribes in northern Montana have established a quarantine site that is now ready and waiting to host surplus Yellowstone bison. The National Park Service is now evaluating whether to use the site as their preferred alternative location for surplus bison. For thousands of years, the plains bison provided food and shelter for tribal communities across the Northern Great Plains.

MOVIEBYTES members can get a $5 discount on Moondance entry fees until the regular submission deadline, with the special MovieBytes code! And it’s free to become a MovieBytes member.

WHAT’S IN THIS NEWS-BLOG:CALL FOR ENTRIESWOMEN IN FILM, WRITING & MUSIC Women In Film & Video
Alliance Of Women DirectorsINSIDER INFO FOR FILMMAKERS Directing Actors in Film
7 Tips for Creating Winning Documentary Films
Making a Great Promotional Trailer
Music in FilmMOONDANCE RECOMMENDATIONS Free Dolphin Activist
Festival That Is Killing Koalas
Parrots & PTSD?SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Women filmmakers, women writers and women music composers are vocal and active participants in the social forces that shape our culture. They portray women as three-dimensional, complex human beings, and thus defy the demeaning and pervasive stereotypes perpetuated by the mainstream media. Our work on reaching out toward women filmmakers, women writers and women composers everywhere in the world is primary and ongoing. Women writers and filmmakers from all six continents, and from a wide diversity of ethnic and linguistic groups are an integral part of our mission and goals. We seek to inspire and invigorate this creative potential of women to perceive, conceptualize, and produce their works for the benefit of the world society. Equity creates new standards, which accommodate and nurture differences. Equity fosters the individual voice, investing women with confidence in their own authority. Equity unleashes the creative potential.READ MORE:

WOMEN IN FILM & VIDEO (WIFV) of Washington, D.C. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the professional development and achievement for women working in all areas of film, television, video, multimedia and related disciplines. WIFV supports women in the industry by promoting equal opportunities, encouraging professional development, serving as an information network, and educating the public about women’s creative and technical achievements. WIFV is part of an umbrella organization called Women In Film & Television International (WIFTI), which is a network of more than 35 chapters around the world. Our membership in WIFTI allows us access to filmmakers from NY to LA to Auckland to Dublin.
For a complete list of WIFTI chapters, visit our web site & join us: http://www.wifv.org

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Dedicated to the education, support & advocacy of women film directors. The Alliance of Women Directors fosters a community of professionals to advance the art, craft and visibility of women directors in the world of film, television and new media. AWD is dedicated to creating opportunities for women’s voices in the world entertainment industry. We believe it is vital that stories are told from all perspectives. We are committed to providing support and advocacy for women filmmakers through resources, tradecraft workshops and mentorship opportunities. Visit the website & join us: http://www.allianceofwomendirectors.org

When judges preview films for film festival competitions, or when distributors look at films they may decide to screen in theaters, or during Academy Award nomination season, or when a talent agent may decide to take you on as a client, or when a production company or film studio is watching your demo reel or trailer, and considering you to direct a film, the actors’ performances are one of the most important elements they look for in the film. You may have a unique story, the best cinematographer, incredible editing, memorable film score, interesting locations, fabulous action scenes, great dialog, and impressive production values, but…if any of the actors, not just the lead actors, fluff a scene, or are wooden, over-act, are amateurish, or are simply unremarkable in their roles, you’ve just lost all credibility as a film director, and you may not ever get a second chance.READ MORE:

At Moondance International Film Festival, we look for documentary films that entertain, inform, inspire, encourage and educate. We believe that films can contribute to a healthier society, and that films should encourage the active involvement of audiences to connect and act collectively to address global challenges. Moondance screens doc films that are innovative, distinctive, compelling, educational, engaging, and relevant to varied audiences, and which encourage active participation.READ MORE:

First, select an interesting subject for your documentary film! A subject that is of interest to a wide-ranging audience, and will be the kind of project many different types of film festivals will select for screening. A unique story, well-told is what gets selected and wins.READ MORE:

Great film trailers are in a special class of their own; little polished gems that showcase your film, and make people want to see more! But film trailers can be more difficult to make really well than the entire film, itself. It can be more time-consuming, judicious editing must be a main concern, you have to tell the main story, theme & concept quickly, harder scene decisions need to be made, and you need to sell your film in less than three minutes. Can you tell the main story, introduce the lead characters, show the main conflict, and give the viewer a visual, memorable impression in under three minutes? And, remember, you need to hook the viewer in the first few seconds! You probably don’t even have a full 3 minutes to do the job, unless the first 30-60 seconds are fantastic.READ MORE:

The power of music in film! Music is the non-verbal, unspoken dialog in a film. A feature film needs at least 30 to 40 minutes of music, which is one of the most important elements in a successful film. Take a look at: 1. A film score can be artfully used to…2. The major categories of a film score are…3. Along with a good screenplay, and great dialog, music is what makes a film memorable! All of these vital crafts and elements contribute to making the “Dream Factory” world of the film believable to movie audiences!READ MORE:

Don’t miss reading all the other great filmmaking & writing articles in the

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know when it will be too late.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Dominique Browning photo

“CARPE DIEM (Seize the Day): Regret for wasted time is just more wasted time.” ~Mason Cooley

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Vincent Van Gogh, “Wheat-field with Crows”

It’s your life, not someone else’s. How do we navigate myth and religion, the hero’s journey, the personal inward quest for meaning, the feminine divine, eternity, and bliss? All human civilization, throughout time, has centered on this cri de coeur, a passionate cry from the heart, the yearning to experience a life of meaning. ~ Joseph Campbell

Ric O’Barry(of Ric O’Barry’s Dolphin Project) wasdetained in the Tokyo Airport on Jan. 18, and has since been held in a deportees facility and repeatedly interrogated. Barry is perhaps most known for his role in the 2009 Academy Award-winning documentary “The Cove,” which details the horrific slaughter of hundreds of dolphins each year in Taiji, Japan. As a result of this spotlight and his continued work to stop the hunts, he has become a target for surveillance and repeated interrogations by the Japanese government. TARGET: Japanese Ministry of Justice; Immigration Bureau of Japan. Please sign this petition now, demanding that Japanese immigration officials stop making up reasons to detain Ric O’Barry and release him immediately!

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BAN NOISY MUSIC FESTIVAL THAT IS KILLING KOALAS!

Scientists believe koalas are dying off in massive numbers because music from a local festival is causing them a great amount of stress. We need to try and ensure this festival is moved or banned in order to save as many koalas as possible. Scientists believe koalas are dying because noise from the Byron Bay Bluesfest is stressing them out. This festival needs to be moved to a more appropriate location or banned in order to ensure that koalas can continue to thrive. One study showed that almost all of the koalas that lived near the festival grounds died shortly after it was held. Another study showed that all of the koalas living in a particular area left to find new homes while the festival was taking place.

Unlike many other wild animals, koalas are not nomadic. Therefore, moving to a new location causes them a great amount of stress. Not only is there a chance that they will be attacked by dogs while trying to relocate, but they may also have adverse encounters with other koalas. Just as bad, their low energy levels as a result of eating eucalyptus leaves makes it so they are much more vulnerable to becoming sick and getting serious diseases whenever those energy levels are rapidly expended. If we do nothing, these beautiful animals will likely continue to quickly die off.SIGN THE PETITION:

Parrots, among the oldest victims of human acquisitiveness and vainglory, have become some of the most empathic readers of our troubled minds. Their deep need to connect is drawing the most severely wounded and isolated PTSD sufferers out of themselves. In an extraordinary example of symbiosis, two entirely different outcasts of human aggression — war and entrapment — are somehow helping each other to find their way again.

There is abundant evidence now that parrots possess cognitive capacities and sensibilities remarkably similar to our own. Veterans, of course, share similar psychological scarring, but asked how it is that the parrots succeed in connecting where human therapists and fellow group-therapy members can’t, the answer seemed to lie precisely in the fact that parrots are alien intelligences: parallel, analogously wounded minds that know and feel pain deeply and yet at a level beyond the confines of human language and prejudices.READ MORE:

When you read logline after logline, patterns emerge. These patterns are sometimes exact copies of each other, clichés based on expressions that are hammered into our heads in taglines we’ve seen on movie or show posters, or in voiceovers we heard in trailers by the late, great Don LaFontaine.

Here are clichés to avoid in loglines and how you can overcome them. Keep in mind that using these can scream “novice writer” to a reader. In most cases, the solution to these is to simply be more specific as to what you are really trying to say when you use them.

The hunter must become the huntedThis is a clichéd tagline that appears in loglines. If the premise involves the hunter becoming the prey, then your logline should illustrate how.

Example: A corrupt cop discovers the man he helped put behind bars twenty years ago is released and angry. Now, the hunter becomes the hunted.

This is better: A corrupt cop learns the wrongly-convicted genius he helped put behind bars twenty years ago is released. Now, his paranoia increases as he sees evidence he may be stalking him despite moving across the country to a farm. READ MORE:

“Hold onto what is individual about you; don’t allow your ambition make you try to imitate the success of others. You’ve got to find it on your own.” ~ Harrison Ford

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Photo by Stephan McGhee

“I can think of few heroic actions which cannot be traced to an artistic impulse. Whomever does great deeds, does them from an innate moral beauty.” ~ Walt Whitman

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“Scriptwriting is like cooking. Shooting the film, the part I like most, is like eating. Editing the film is, well, the washing up.” ~ Claude Chabrol, French film director, a member of the French New Wave group of filmmakers

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Andrew Wyeth painting “Master Bedroom”

“Almost everything will work again if you just unplug it for a little while, including you!” ~Anne Lamott

Hala is Syrian, and she lost her mother, her home, and her childhood in one terrible moment when a bomb hit her house when Hala was outside, playing in the courtyard. Hala has become the “mother” of the family. She prepares the food, cleans, and attends to her oldest brother, 18, injured by the bomb that took their mother. Hala is not in school … she gets little rest … and she could use more food. In spite of all that, she is brave and resolute. If Hala was an 11-year-old American girl, the video she made with Angelina Jolie Pitt would probably be the high point of her life. WATCH THEVIDEO:Find out what happened to Hala.

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Saving Dolphins and Whales, Protecting the Oceans

Make 2016 the year we save thousands of dolphin and shark lives. Early in the new year we will complete filming our documentary of the whole vicious process of killing dolphins, overfishing sharks and commercializing the meat and fins. When released worldwide on television, this will put huge pressure on Peru to enforce its laws – already on the books – to protect dolphins and end overfishing of sharks. Together we will save the lives of thousands of dolphins and sharks. The dolphins of Peru are depending on you. www.bluevoice.org

Moondance is a unique, world-class venue for bold and visionary filmmakers, writers and composers to present their work to the cinema-loving public who are looking for quality alternatives to all those blockbuster studio movie projects. Our top-quality film screenings are always of entertaining and thought-provoking indie films, and the film festival attracts the cinema-loving public, filmmakers, writers & musicians, but also international talent, music & literary agents, actors, production companies, film distributors, and established producers.

As we prepare for the 2016 Moondance International Film Festival, our 17th annual event, and to make our global goals a reality, through entertainment, film, writing & music, there has never been a better or more important time or place to speak up, stand up, and rise up to help make the world a better place for all. We hope you’ll join us and actively participate in our shared to-do list and this important effort now.

WHAT IS IN THIS BLOG:

MOONDANCE 2016 CALL-FOR-ENTRIES

GIRL UP!

THE ART OF OBSERVATION

YOUR SMART-PHONE…

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT TODAY

7SEAS PRODUCTIONS CONSULTATION OFFER

MOONDANCE RECOMMENDS & SUPPORTS:

Campaigns like our “Girl Up”, the movement to empower adolescent girls at the United Nations Foundation, are so vitally important. The Foundation’s global goals reaffirm the simple principle that the United Nations Foundation has believed in and worked for since 2010: when girls are educated, healthy, and counted, they can change the world. With the support and guidance of our incredible network of more than half a million adolescent girl leaders around the world, Girl Up has powered critical UN programs in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Liberia, Malawi, and India – just some of the places where it’s hardest to be a girl. These programs help fulfill vital needs like access to quality education and healthcare, advocacy against child marriage, and making sure that girls’ voices are heard.

It takes all nations and all sectors to make progress on the most important and far-reaching international challenges. The UN Foundation is an advocate for the UN and a platform for connecting people, ideas and resources to help the United Nations solve global problems. http://www.unfoundation.org

THE ART OF OBSERVATION:

Learning to Really Look

Active observation, being mindful of our surroundings, is how we make sense of things; it’s an incredibly valuable tool. By taking the time to observe, without judgment, bias, preference or prejudice, by using your previous knowledge, by noticing changes, you can begin to unravel the mysterious, unlock the problem and with your naturally creative and critical thinking skills, you take the consequent correlations and connections, and begin to form understanding. Like any habit worth forming the ability to observe and make deductions can be improved with deliberate practice. With a creative-thinking, engaged and enquiring mind, the power of observation can be developed by cultivating habits of watching. To writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, ‘people-watching’ is as important as practicing scales is to a pianist.

Take a few minutes each day to focus outwardly at the world around you, and learn from the interactions, the expressions, the movements, the textures and shades of human life. There is no one-way or right way to do it. By developing our visual sense, our visual literacy we are better able to immerse ourselves in our experience of our surroundings. We spark our imaginations when we notice things. We don’t think in a linear fashion, but instead draw on the network of connections we have created over time.

We were given five senses but without attention, any one of these is flattened and is as useless as a deflated balloon. Pump up your visual sense and your day becomes a brighter place. Look up from your smart phone, look out at the horizon, or zoom in to the nook and crannies, climb to tallest building and look down at people scurrying like ants, or lie in the grass and watch the clouds turn into faces. Sit with a small child and see what they see, look through the glass into the gorilla enclosure and wonder what those intelligent eyes are conveying, search out all the public art or graffiti in your area and stop for a while to contemplate what the artist was thinking when they made it. Take a walk through a forest and see how the branches twist and turn from one tree to the next, like scribbles in the sky. Tramp along a beach and see how many colours you can count in the pebbles or grains of sand.

Peer out of the airplane window when you go on holiday and marvel at the patterns below, then look at the lines on the palms of your hands and see how the DNA of the planet and ourselves are interconnected. Keep a visual journal with you to scribble down what you see, in doodles or notes, and question the make-up of your observations. What more can you learn from what you have seen? How can you use these observations to improve and deepen your writing, filmmaking & music composition? ~Lou Hamiltion(article condensed & edited by EE)

YOUR iPHONE IS RUINING YOUR POSTURE — AND YOUR MOOD!

By AMY CUDDY, DEC. 12, 2015, NYT

There are plenty of reasons to put our cell-phones down now and then, not least the fact that incessantly checking them takes us out of the present moment and disrupts family dinners around the globe. But here’s one you might not have considered: Smart-phones are ruining our posture. And bad posture doesn’t just mean a stiff neck. It can hurt us in insidious psychological ways.

If you’re in a public place, look around: How many people are hunching over a phone? Technology is transforming how we hold ourselves, contorting our bodies into what the New Zealand physiotherapist Steve August calls the iHunch. I’ve also heard people call it text neck, and in my work I sometimes refer to it as iPosture. When we’re sad, we slouch. We also slouch when we feel scared or powerless. Studies have shown that people with clinical depression adopt a posture that eerily resembles the iHunch.

So, the next time you reach for your phone, remember that it induces slouching, and slouching changes your mood, your memory and even your behavior. Your physical posture sculpts your psychological posture, and could be the key to a happier mood and greater self-confidence.READ MORE

Amy Cuddy is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of the forthcoming book “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.”

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT TODAY:

photo: venturebeat.com

“We are each of us angels with only one wing. The only way we can fly is by embracing one another.” ~ Luciano de Crescendo

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“Let our New Year’s resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.” ~ Greg Persson

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occasionalplanet.org

“If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you back! Much of the best work in the world has been done despite seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.” ~ Dale Carnegie

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“Let the one who would be grateful think of repaying the kindness while it is being received.” ~ Seneca

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“Love has nothing at all to do with what you are expecting to get – only with what you are expecting to give, which is everything.” ~ Katherine Hepburn

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“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.” ~ Babtunde Olatunji, Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist

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PROFESSIONAL COVERAGE OF YOUR SCRIPT OR FILM!

Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track? 7seas Productions now offers script reading services, critiques, coverage and edits to all screenwriters, playwrights & filmmakers, and to production companies and agencies, at special discount prices!

Focusing on the elements crucial to creating a compelling and readable script, and/or a winning, marketable film, our helpful comments will allow you to concentrate on solving the problems that will make your material move toward receiving a CONSIDER or a RECOMMENDED from a studio or production company reader, and will assist in advancing your script or film up toward WINNER in screenwriting competitions & film festivals.

An advantage of this low-cost critique service is that we will help you prepare your screenplay before sending it to screenwriting competitions, film producers, agents, managers and others who may have requested it.READ MORE

The Moondance International Film Festival is dedicated to providing the local community and international festival attendees with a diverse array of top-quality films from the US and around the world. In addition to showcasing the most important new indie narrative, documentary, animation, multi-media music videos and, new this season: drone films, Moondance provides unique multi-cultural experiences, professional networking opportunities and events, participatory workshops and pitch-panels for filmmakers, writers and music composers. For additional information, updates, announcements, insider articles, and inspiration, please subscribe to our popular news-blog at: www.moondancefilmfestival.com/blogand visit:www.moondancefilmfestival.com

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS:

GENDER EQUALITY IN MEDIA: FROM AWARENESS TO ACTION

Sophia Coppola

Think about it. When was the last time you went to see a movie directed by a woman? Please check out & consider supporting these vital organizations that are making a difference: Women’s Media Center, whose mission is to increase the visibility of women in media and the numbers of women in decision-making positions, The Sundance Institute, and Women in Film, on the status of women filmmakers, and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender Awareness: http://seejane.org, which illuminates institutional bias in favor of male directors in the studio system. Naming the gender gap in media is the first step, but, of course, it’s not enough; we must go beyond raising awareness of the problem to taking action to solve it. One example of this is SheSource, an online resource that the Women’s Media Center created in the U.S. that links news producers looking for experts to women experts across a broad range of subject areas. SheSource also provides a training program that prepares progressive female voices to be media-ready. “Women Filmmakers Fare Much Better in the Indie World – But It’s Still Not Good Enough” READ MORE:

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The Women of Hollywood Speak Out

NYT article by Maureen Dowd, Nov. 20, 2015

Mimi Leder, photo by Amy Kellner

Female executives and filmmakers are ready to run studios and direct blockbuster pictures. What will it take to dismantle the pervasive sexism that keeps them from doing it?

Female directors are in what ‘‘Girls’’ creator Lena Dunham calls ‘‘a dark loop.’’ If they don’t have experience, they can’t get hired, and if they can’t get hired, they can’t get experience. ‘‘It’s kind of like the church,’’ notes the actress Anjelica Huston, whose father, John Huston, helped set the template for macho directors. ‘‘They don’t want us to be priests. They want us to be obedient nuns.’’ Manohla Dargis, co-chief film critic for The New York Times, wrote a three-part series on the plight of female directors, calling the imbalance ‘‘immoral, maybe illegal.’’ When I began reporting this article several months ago and asked some male moguls in the entertainment industry for their perspectives, they shrugged the issue off as ‘‘bogus’’ or ‘‘a tempest in a teapot.’’

Penny Marshall, the director and actress, told me in that hilarious nasal whine: ‘‘All they like is ‘Superman,’ ‘Batman,’ those kinds of things, because it sells foreign, because it doesn’t have a lot of dialogue. Even the comedies are sophomoric. Lena Dunham laments that, instead of creating space for women to tell stories they are naturally good at telling, the studios just keep trying to wedge them into narrow, clichéd concepts. ‘‘I think there’s a fear that females can only tell female stories, like if they’re given free rein, they’ll just write stories where everyone’s braiding each other’s hair and crying,’’ said Jessica Elbaum.

But if only 1.9 percent of the top 100 films are helmed by women, there is virtually no trickle-down effect. ‘‘What struck me the most was how blatant and out in the open some of the discrimination was,’’ says Ariela Migdal. The image of a director as swaggering general is deeply embedded in the Hollywood brain even though it has nothing to do with ability. The actor Alec Baldwin, who has worked with Meyers, notes that the ‘‘clichéd paramilitary nature’’ of directing runs deep. ‘‘They call it shooting,’’ he says. ‘‘Its groupings are called units. They communicate on walkie-talkies. The director is the general. There is still the presumption that men are better designed for the ferocity and meanness that the job often requires.

When considering women in powerful positions, it’s also important to remember the male-dominated terrain they have to navigate. ‘‘When male Hollywood executives make decisions, they are in touch with their 15-year-old self — that’s who they’re making movies for,’’ said one top Hollywood woman.(excerpts by EE) READ MORE:

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Join the Wave of Change!

Hedgebrook supports women writers authoring change.

We call Hedgebrook writers Women Authoring Change, because the impact of their work is experienced in so many facets of our culture. Work generated by the writers who come to Hedgebrook flows out from Whidbey Island to reach millions of people around the globe.

When you count up all the writers who’ve experienced Hedgebrook through residencies, festivals, classes, workshops and events at home and around the world— and those yet to come—you see how the ripples of change are building into waves.

Give Hedgebrook a gift this year, and join the wave. Your gift directly enables us to support women writers authoring change in our culture every day. Together, we will reach a future of Equal Voice. http://www.hedgebrook.org

My advice for upcoming actors is to take acting lessons, and to study people and events, pay close attention to actions and reactions by people & to events you experience in the world, to body language, tone of voice and accents, as well as facial expressions & then use that information & knowledge when you play a character. Become the character you play & react to the other actors & situation appropriately for that character. Get experience in theater acting, and in film & as an extra and watch what the director wants to see in other actors. Try to get work on a film production, even as a driver, an extra, or any production job, to see how a film is made. Do networking and make good contacts, for future reference.

In your daily life, pay attention & remember what you see people doing & how they react to each other and to different circumstances, situations, crises and events. And then use that in your own acting. Not just people of your same age, race, location, economic situation & gender. Watch everybody & then use what you’ve seen and heard. Make it part of your studies to go to different places, in different weathers, at different times of day or night, and watch the people there, to see and hear how they go through their daily life & react to others & to events. Be prepared to play any character!

Do not try to be like other actors on TV, movies or theater. Be unique. Every individual has a personal life story, which affects who they are, how they react to others and circumstances, and you should include that unique back-story when you create a character. The world is your acting studio & teacher. Remember: acting is reacting! And you’ll need a talent agent to get you work, but you need to have good acting experience & some acting credits first.

MOONDANCE RECOMMENDS & SUPPORTS:

World leaders at the UN climate talks have just set a landmark goal that can save everything we love! This is what we marched for, what we signed, called, donated, messaged, and hoped for: a brilliant and massive turning point in human history. It’s called net-zero human emissions — a balancing of what we release into the air and what is taken out — and when the dust settles and the Paris Agreement is in the hands of lawmakers, clean energy will be the best, cheapest, and most effective way to keep their promise. This gives us the platform we need to realize the dream of a safe future for generations!

Everyone expected failure from the climate conference process. Leaders told Avaaz staff over and over again, “people don’t care about climate change” . But we knew better. We knew this community of millions consistently chose saving our planet as a key priority for our work together, year after year.

We have decades of work ahead of us to live up to the promise of this moment. We need more ambition to meet our 100% clean energy by 2050 target, improving on the benchmark of “the second half of the century” now in the agreement. We need rich countries to give more money to developing countries so they can skip coal altogether and lift hundreds of millions out of poverty. We need to push governments everywhere to keep the planet’s warming under 1.5 degrees so that island nations can survive. And most importantly, we need to make sure all our governments keep the promises they made here in Paris.

Avaaz.org is a 42-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Without climate action, humanity, wildlife, and the planet we know and love will suffer. Many species will be under increased threat when they’re not able to adapt to rising seas, changing rainfall patterns, warming temperatures, an acidifying and warming ocean and other consequences of increased carbon pollution. We cannot stand back and let this happen. We need to start today and change the way we choose and use energy and resources. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the United States and the world today. The only way to protect life on our planet from its worst impacts will be strong action by all countries.READ MORE:

Oscar-winner Louis Psihoyos, based in Boulder, Colorado, in his latest film, Racing Extinction, he and his team of eco-spies explore the global loss of wildlife by infiltrating the world’s most dangerous black markets and exposing the disastrous effects of carbon emissions and acidified oceans, with state-of-the-art equipment and Bond-esque strategies.

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Dangerous Neurotoxic Pesticides in Our Food!

After years of pressure fromEarthjusticelawsuits and advocacy efforts by a diverse coalition of groups, the EPA recently proposed banning the dangerous neurotoxic pesticide chlorpyrifos from all food crops. Dow AgroSciences—which manufactured the millions of pounds of chlorpyrifos sprayed on our agricultural fields this past year—is doing everything in its power to stop or weaken the ban. Chlorpyrifos poisons farm-workers and communities at alarming rates and causes serious brain and neuro-developmental impairments in children.

The EPA has already found that extensive scientific evidence links chlorpyrifos to serious harm to children’s brains, including reduced IQ, loss of working memory, delayed development and attention disorders. It is already banned for residential uses because of its harm to kids.

What’s worse is just how widely the pesticide is used—millions of pounds applied each year on crops from corn to almonds and fruit trees—and even Christmas trees sold during the holiday season! Tell the EPA to stand up to the pesticide industry and ban this neurotoxic pestcide for good. http://earthjustice.org

It’s no secret that Americans love popcorn. We consume more than 16 billion quarts of the buttery gold each year. But few know that most of what we’re feasting on comes from seeds coated with toxic bee-killing pesticides called Neonicotinoids.

No bees, no popcorn.

Which is why conservationists are celebrating popcorn giant Popweaver’s recent decision to phase out the use of neonicotinoid-coated seeds. An estimated 80 to 95 percent of America’s corn and nearly half of its soybean seeds are pre-coated with Neocotinoids. Scientists have linked the use of these pesticides to an alarming decline in bee populations over the last decade. Beekeepers are reporting annual hive losses of 40 to 50 percent, with some as high as 100 percent. Overall, the number of managed honey bee colonies in the U.S. has dropped from 6 million in 1947 to fewer than 2.5 million today.

This has enormous implications—bees pollinate 71 of the 100 crops that provide 90 percent of the world’s food, according to the United Nations Environment Program. And bees aren’t the only ones in trouble. Nearly 40 pollinator species are listed as threatened or endangered, with many more under consideration for listing. Without pollinator species, over 70 percent of plants would be unable to reproduce or provide food.

Pressuring popcorn companies to use non-coated seeds is a step in the right direction, but biofuel, grain, fiber, food, and beverage industries also rely upon Neonicotinoid-coated crops. A shift in large-scale agriculture’s reliance on pesticides would give pollinator species a fighting chance, bolster national food security, and ensure guilt-free popcorn eating for all. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Want to help the bees? Buy or grow organic popcorn! Tell PopSecret to stop using neonicotinoid-coated seeds.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

“The way I see it, there are reasons to never be unhappy. First, you were born. This, in itself, is a remarkable achievement. Being born is easily the most remarkable achievement of your whole life. Second, you are alive. For the tiniest moment in the span of eternity, you have the miraculous privilege of existing. Since you are able to sit here right now in this never-to-be-repeated moment, reading this, is really wondrous beyond belief.” ~ Bill Bryson, “Notes from a Small Island”

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Llanrwst Bridge, Conwy River, Wales

“Love is the bridge between you & everything else” ~ Rumi

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“The sun, with all those planets orbiting around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes on the vine, as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” ~ Galileo

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T I M E • O U T !

Time is arguably the biggest luxury. Why have wealth if you have no time to enjoy it? Why wait until we retire to dabble away at what we enjoy in the final expanse that time affords us? Most creative people understand the importance of empty space in their lives, time to mull, chew the fat, daydream, gaze. It is in this space our best ideas come. When our lives are stuffed from morning to night there is barely a moment for contemplation or inspiration, to go and play, think, snooze.

But many people are terrified of not being ‘busy’. They want to fill up time with as much activity as possible, most of which is non-essential. They are scared of time, scared of being bored or lonely or being faced with difficult questions like ‘what the hell am I doing with my life?’ The idea of taking a day to just do ‘nothing’ is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. What’s that? they ask, no way, I am far too busy for that. With what?

Neuroscientists are having a field-day researching the benefits on the brain, of timeout through mindfulness and meditation. The results are fairly conclusive. Give your brain the chance to slow down, notice the insignificant, observe emotions with detachment and it gradually starts to rewire itself; from hyper-frenzy, addiction, negativity to acceptance, calmness, control. Timeout is a sure-fire self-optimization tool for the super-technology age, a practice as old as time itself. ~ Lou Hamiltion, UK

Lights, Camera, Action! The Moondance International Film Festival invites all talented US & International filmmakers, writers and music composers to submit their films, written works and film scores to its 17th annual season, planned to take place in September 2016. Our fabulous & memorable festival event location venue will be announced shortly.

Moondance is known as the “American Cannes” of film festivals, and features the very best of indie films, music & writing by talented artists from around the world, Plan now to participate in this unique competition and film festival! For the last 16 years, the annual Moondance International Film Festival has showcased many hundreds of top-quality award-winning indie films, and hosted filmmakers, writers, composers, actors, industry professionals and media, from around the world.

Get Ready for Your Close-up! Moondance celebrates, encourages, inspires, and supports original independent films, written works and music, not just during our film festival, but throughout the year. Moondance screens the very best in independent cinema to enthusiastic audiences from the US and around the world. Our super-productive workshops, pitch-panels, networking parties and events, film screenings, filmmaker Q&A’s, and gala awards ceremony and reception are very popular and always very well-attended. Thanks for helping keep Moondance in the international entertainment community spotlight!

ANNOUNCING THE 2016 MOONDANCE FESTIVAL EXECUTIVE PRODUCER

GEORGES LECLERE:

A native of Paris, France, Founder and President of LGMA Inc., a global media consulting company, Georges Leclere is also the creator of several initiatives using television and media to fight the causes of global warming. Through LGMA, Leclere advises international companies on worldwide media, ranging from classic television events to future visual media on any platform. Among its clients and endeavors, LGMA was appointed director of the Banff World Television Festival Program Competition and Awards. Leclere created the Francophone TV Programs Competition and the Banff International Pilots Competition (see www.banffmediafestival.com). That same year, Leclereproduced the History-Makers Awards competition and awards, (see www.historymakers2011.com). Georges is also advisor for the Foundation for International Understanding, an initiative of the US Congress, advisor for the Sichuan TV Festival in China and the Seoul Drama Awards, La Cinquième, the Franco-German Cultural Channel, ARTE, and Sesame Street Workshop. Most recently, Leclere was consultant for several companies from the Monaco Media Forum and the Rose d’Or Festival, The Prix Galien, the Elie Wiesel Foundation and will be a co-producer of the 2016 Canada International Film & Television Festival in Vancouver, Canada.

Leclere, together with the board of directors, has started a new initiative: Music as a Natural Resource, (www.musicasanaturalresource.com), for which he produces the awards ceremony. Georges Leclere is an international journalist, producer and communications specialist who from 1986 through 1993, served as director of radio and TV for the United Nations. Currently a Fellow of the International Academy, Leclere is credited with the creation of the iEMMYs Festival, screening International Emmy-nominated programs. The French Government has awarded Georges Leclere the prestigious Medal of “Chevalier des Arts & des Lettres”. He is now the executive producer for the Moondance International Film Festival!

MOONDANCERS COME FROM AROUND THE WORLD!

Moondancers are part of an amazing worldwide community; a unique collaboration of multi-talented writers, film score composers, filmmakers and audiences. The Moondance mission is to entertain, inform, inspire, encourage and educate. We honor those artists who, through their creative work, actively increase awareness, provide multiple viewpoints, address complex social issues, and strengthen ties between international audiences At Moondance, you can come together with film audiences, filmmakers, writers, directors, producers, actors, agents, and composers to create new opportunities, develop tools for success and forge new alliances within the international film and entertainment industry.

Manatees are gentle and slow-moving animals. Most of their time is spent eating, resting, and traveling, and it is believed they can live 60 years or more.. The manatee’s closest relatives are the elephant and the hyrax (a small, gopher-sized mammal). Manatees are believed to have evolved from a wading, plant-eating animal. The average adult manatee is about 10 feet long and weighs between 800 and 1,200 pounds. The Florida Manatee Recovery Plan was developed as a result of the Endangered Species Act. The recovery plan is coordinated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and sets forth a list of tasks geared toward recovering manatees from their current endangered status. Manatees are easily injured or killed due to their large size and generally slow pace, which makes them vulnerable to being hit by motorboats and caught in fishing nets.

Because of its warm waters, Florida’s Blue Spring State Park is a winter refuge for a growing number of manatees (pictured). Photo by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic

Sailors across many cultures have thought these aquatic mammals were the mythical mermaids! The scientific name for manatees is Sirenia, a name reminiscent of mythical mermaids, or sirens of the sea.Save the Manatee Club’s mission is to protect endangered manatees and their aquatic habitat for future generations. To achieve this mission, we work to: increase public awareness and education; sponsor manatee research, rescue, rehabilitation, and release efforts; and advocate for strong protection measures, such as boat speed zones and sanctuaries. SMC also supports research and conservation efforts for other sirenian species around the world.Adopt-A-Manatee®now and help support manatee protection efforts! Unlike some other animal adoption programs, the manatees in our adoption programs are real, living manatees with names & known histories.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

“True peace is a state of mind brought about only by peaceful people.” ~ Jawaharal Nehru

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“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror.” ~ Edith Wharton

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Illustration by E. H. Shepard

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” ~ A.A. Milne,Winnie-the-Pooh

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect, and beginning to work on just becoming your best self.” ~ Anna Quindlen

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“There is much more to creative endeavors, riding races, and survival than fearlessness and being able to stay in the saddle; more than tactics, more than experience, more than ambition. Winning races, like survival or success, begins in the mind.” ~ Excerpted & edited from “Longshot”, byDick Francis

THE CASE FOR MELANCHOLY

Melancholy’s Sweet Allure

By Laren Stover – Nov. 7, 2015 – NYT (excerpted)

Illustration by Shannon Freshwater

Everywhere you look these days you see something on how to be happy — how to manifest abundance, desires and success, find your bliss. A quick Google search will produce instantaneous remedies for the blues: the promise that it’s possible to find happiness in 10 or 15 easy steps. Some strategies promise happiness in as few as three steps.

Whatever happened to experiencing the grace of melancholy, which requires reflection: a sort of mental steeping, like tea? What if all this cheerful advice only makes you feel inadequate? What if you were born morose? Melancholy, distinguished from grief, is not caused by events, like losing your job, the passing of beloved pets, your miscarriages or health problems. Nor does it vanish when you receive excellent news, like a big film star optioning your novel, or being invited to an all-expenses-paid trip to Venice for the Biennale.

Melancholy is more … ephemeral.

It visits you like a mist, a vapor, a fog. It is generally uninvited. And as some people are born into royalty, wealth and prestige, others inherit a disposition for sadness. Personally, I’d much rather open the windows to the fragrant garden of melancholy, and spritz on something to go with ennui, reflection, wistfulness. Such a gentle perfume might smell like autumn rain, or a rain-damp windowsill infused with wilted, decaying roses and tears.

Should melancholy descend, you may as well welcome it, wear your finest lounging outfit; give it your finest fainting couch or chaise to lounge in, or that hammock stretched between two elm trees. Let it settle in. You may as well enjoy it reclining with a pot of green thunder tea as you watch the rolled leaves unfurl their poetic fury as it steeps, as you listen to Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé” or Jean Françaix’s Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, 2a.

I propose there be melancholy perfumes, fashions, footwear (no running shoes under any circumstances), music (Lana Del Rey is the melancholy diva du jour, and Joni Mitchell and Billie Holiday still work), elixirs (no alcohol; look what happened to Edgar Allan Poe) and furniture ideally suited for indulging in or succumbing to the deeply tinted blue moods….I want moonlight.

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Photo by Paul Emerson

“Hope requires stepping out from the past and looking to the future. It’s about imagining a better tomorrow and being prepared to do what it takes to make it so. It’s about creating a vision and taking affirmative action. It makes the difference between success and failure, triumph or defeat, confidence or fearfulness. Hope is the leading indicator of success in relationships, academics, career, and business—as well as of a healthier, happier life. Without the proactive approach of constructive and creative endeavour, the belief that tomorrow will be better than today is merely an optimistic attitude. Wishful thinking doesn’t get us where we want to be, hard work in the right direction does. To create a hopeful attitude we must use our imaginations to envision positive outcomes, we must develop a plan of action and we must take the necessary steps. When we actually do something about making the future a better place, then we are living in the real definition of hope.” ~ Lou Hamilton, award-winning screenwriter & filmmaker, career coach, UKREAD MORE

Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track? 7seas Productions now offers script reading services, critiques, coverage and edits to all screenwriters, playwrights & filmmakers, and to production companies and agencies, at special discount prices!

Focusing on the elements crucial to creating a compelling and readable script, and/or a winning, marketable film, our helpful comments will allow you to concentrate on solving the problems that will make your material move toward receiving a CONSIDER or a RECOMMENDED from a studio or production company reader, and will assist in advancing your script or film up toward WINNER in screenwriting competitions & film festivals.

A big advantage of this low-cost critique service is that we will help you prepare your screenplay before sending it to screenwriting competitions, film producers, agents, managers and others who may have requested it.READ MORE

“Creativity is a magic wand that works two ways. When you set it in action and seek to create something, it does not just brings into existence that object or work, it also raises in your heart a dream, a hope, and a will to achieve that creation.” ~ Jyoti AroraWHAT’S IN THIS NEWS-BLOG?

THOUGHTS ON CREATIVE WRITING

A MOONDANCER WRITES US

MOONDANCER NEWS

OFF-BEAT POWER PLAYERS

MOONDANCE RECOMMENDS & SUPPORTS:

SUMATRAN TIGERS & CINNAMON?

A MAN-MADE CRISIS FOR ORANGUTANS

MARINE MAMMALS IN DANGER

EMPOWERING THROUGH EDUCATION

IS THIS THE LIFE YOU’RE MEANT TO LIVE?

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

New Yorker magazine cartoon, by Isaac Littlejohn Eddy

“(Writing is) the carrier of civilization. Without it, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.” ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

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“It is the function of the arts to renew our perception. What we are familiar with, we fail to see. The writer shapes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see new meaning in it.” ~ Anais Nin

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“What is important – what lasts – in (any) language is not what is said, but what is written. For the essence of an age, we look to its poetry and its prose…” ~ Peter Brodie

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“(Creative) writing preserves you in a state of innocence – a lot passes you by – simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.” ~ Anita Brookner

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” ~ E. L. Doctorow

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New Yorker magazine cartoon, by Charles Barsotti

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A MOONDANCER WRITES US:

“Received the Moondance Seahorse Award. Beautiful! Will frame and hang it ASAP. I want to thank you again for including the play in your wonderful festival. Wish I could have attended. Now if I can just get someone to produce it…” ~ Fred Perry, playwright (The Ascension of Twyla Potts)

MOONDANCER NEWS:

Christine Tulis and Kem Stone, Having forged a musical partnership based on their shared beliefs, Tulis and Stone have traveled widely to share their music, including performances at the United Nations in New York and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. They have produced two recordings. Their first CD, “Portal,” won the Gaia Award for Spiritual Music from the Moondance International Film Festival in 2008. They are currently working on their third release at their recording studio in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tulis finds inspiration for her lyrics in the mystical poetry of Rumi, the writings of Saint Theresa of Avila as well as personal experiences. She writes songs to celebrate “the universal qualities of divine love and beauty,” according to a press release. “The harp has an ancient history of being used to facilitate healing and help people connect to the sacred, inner dimensions of their being.” Tulis and Stone, both award-winning composers and musicians, present concerts that highlight the healing qualities of music.

OFF-BEAT POWER PLAYERS:

(Jacob Koffler, Time Magazine: August 17, 2015)

JELLYFISH: Scientists in Sweden have harnessed a protein from glow-in the-dark jellyfish to create miniature fuel cells for electronics, and more.

DANCING: Club Watt in Rotterdam uses floor vibrations, generated by people walking and dancing, to power its light system.

BODY HEAT: The Mall of America. in Minneapolis. has long relied on human shoppers & visitors to help warm its corridors, and now London and Paris are piping heat from crowded subway stations into nearby homes during cold weather.

HUMAN WASTE: Scientists at the University of California at Irvine have developed a method of deriving hydrogen from processed sewage, which is being used to power fuel cells for cars.

So the next time you order that cinnamon latte, think about how we’re working to help people, animals and forests thrive in harmony. This is just one piece of the puzzle in our work to protect vital rainforests.

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The forest fires currently raging in Indonesia are a man-made crisis driven by decades of forest destruction by some of the biggest palm oil and paper companies in the world. As you read this, Indonesia’s forests are burning. Orangutans and tigers are losing their homes with nowhere to go. And at the root of this tragedy is one of the greatest environmental crimes of our time: decades of forest destruction by some of the world’s biggest palm oil and paper companies.

Can you join me in taking action today? Greed is winning over the survival of people and amazing wildlife like orangutans and tigers. Millions of people in Indonesia and neighboring countries are suffering from the toxic haze caused by the fires. Please HELP restore and protect Indonesia’s forests and peatlands, and implement an industry-wide ban on trade with companies that destroy forests and peatlands. Around the world, tens of thousands of Greenpeace supporters are building the pressure on the Indonesian Government and company CEOs to act.Take action now: sign the petition to help save Indonesia’s forests, wildlife and people!

Here’s a truly unimaginable statistic: More than 650,000 whales, dolphins and other marine mammals are killed or seriously injured every year after being hooked, entangled or trapped in commercial fishing gear used by fleets across the globe.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act requires the U.S. to import only fish and fish products that meet U.S. standards for protecting marine mammals — but this lifesaving measure has never been enforced by the federal government. Shockingly, that means that the majority of foreign seafood we eat — from shrimps, to sea bass, to fish sticks — has been caught in violation of federal law. Meanwhile, our planet’s most vulnerable marine mammal species remain in grave danger, and are suffering and dying.

But here’s the good news: the Obama Administration is finalizing new regulations to end this horrendous practice and save marine mammals. These new rules would enforce the existing law, only allowing seafood from foreign fisheries to be imported into the U.S., only if it’s been caught in accordance with U.S. standards for protecting marine mammals.READ MORE:

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Empowering through Education!

Some of these children are on the Rosemary Pencil scholarship program who attend CITW’s after-school eco clubs.

THE ROSEMARY PENCIL FOUNDATION believes that all children have the right to an education. Working with our local partner, Children in the Wilderness, we help transform the lives of children in rural Malawi and Zimbabwe by providing scholarships for them to attend secondary school and pursue higher education. Although primary school education in these countries is free, secondary school requires tuition fees. Through the kindness of donors, we are able to expand the opportunities for these children and, by extension, their communities.

Nearly all our students are orphans and without your help would finish elementary school at age 13 or 14 and remain at home in their villages. This is particularly true of the girls. Despite very challenging circumstances, these boys and girls have an incredible spirit and hope for the future.

Since our founding in 2005, more than 100 children have benefited from our program and completed four years of secondary school in Malawi. We currently have more than 70 students at school in Malawi and Zimbabwe as well supporting some former students in higher education, job training and teacher’s training.

In 2013 the Rosemary Pencil Foundation in partnership with Worldreader introduced e-readers to Malawi, giving students more than one hundred African, American and British authors to read and enjoy as well as being able to access the Malawi secondary school curriculum on a Kindles. In 2015, thanks to the gift from one individual donor, we were able to bring a second shipment of e-readers to another school in Malawi.DONATE NOW!

IS THIS THE LIFE YOU’RE MEANT TO LIVE?

Because most modern people have separated their minds from their bodies, and their souls have been banished from their ordinary lives, they forget that the well-being of all three (body, mind, and spirit) is intimately entwined. Health begins with firmness in body, deepens to emotional stability, then leads to intellectual clarity, wisdom, and, finally, the unveiling of the soul. These are relative to and dependent upon the stage of consciousness we are at.

Your body is the child of the soul.You must nourish and train your child. Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for, nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills. You have to create within yourself the experience of beauty, liberation, and infinity. This is health. Healthy plants and trees yield abundant flowers and fruits. Similarly, from a healthy person, smiles and happiness shine forth like the rays of the sun.

Even in simple yoga asanas, one is experiencing the three levels of the quest: the external quest, which brings firmness of the body; the internal quest, which brings steadiness of intelligence; and the innermost quest, which brings benevolence of spirit. As long as the body is not in perfect health, you are caught in body consciousness alone. This distracts you from healing and culturing the mind.

“I CHOOSE…to live by choice, not by chance; to make changes, not excuses; to be motivated, not manipulated; to be useful, not used; to excel, not compete. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice, not the random opinions of others.” ~ Author Unknown

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Graphic artist unknown

“I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to be.” ~ Carl Jung

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“If you give yourself up to unproductive emotions, you cannot focus on your goals.” ~ Anonymous

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“If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, just pick up some of those pieces and begin again.” ~ Flavia Weedn

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“Whatever you want to be, or do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.” ~ Pope Paul VI

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PROFESSIONAL COVERAGE OF YOUR SCRIPT OR FILM!

Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track? 7seas Productions now offers script reading services, critiques, coverage and edits to all screenwriters, playwrights & filmmakers, and to production companies and agencies, at special discount prices!

Focusing on the elements crucial to creating a compelling and readable script, and/or a winning, marketable film, our helpful comments will allow you to concentrate on solving the problems that will make your material move toward receiving a CONSIDER or a RECOMMENDED from a studio or production company reader, and will assist in advancing your script or film up toward WINNER in screenwriting competitions & film festivals.

An advantage of this low-cost critique service is that we will help you prepare your screenplay before sending it to screenwriting competitions, film producers, agents, managers and others who may have requested it.READ MORE

Selected Moondance winning films have been invited to be screened the annual 2015 Canadian International Film & Television festival (CIFTF), which takes place in Richmond & Vancouver, BC, Canada, November 6-8th. Moondance winning films will be screened as a special Moondance Roadshow part of this important event, from November 8-10th. Many of the event’s attendees & invitees are from China, and include the director of the China Film Group in Beijing, who is responsible for all films produced or screened in China. Please consider attending the festival. This is your best chance to network with the powers-that-be in the lucrative Chinese film & television industry! All events and film screenings are free of charge.

The extraordinary thing about working in the medium of film is that we get to tell stories with compelling images that capture the imaginations and the emotions of our audiences. And the challenging thing about working in film is that half of the things that exist in the world, we can’t see! We can’t see thoughts and we can’t see feelings.

And that means, as screenwriters, our job is to externalize these internal thoughts and feelings. To take them outside of the mind, and put them into the body and the action of our screenplay. To translate the emotional language of our writing into compelling and visceral action.

As one of my great mentors, Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili, who is a world-renowned set designer, used to say, “If you want a director to do what you want, you must make him think it is his idea.” And one of the ways we allow directors and producers to do what we want and connect and visualize our movies in the way that we want them to see them is by externalizing the internal: capturing our story in images exactly the way that we are seeing it in our heads.

Similarly, if you want to attract an A-list actor to your film, you need to learn to externalize the internal in a visceral way, so that you can capture their attention from the very first line, stimulate their imaginations, and allow them to see themselves doing all those exciting things that your character is doing, as if they were already playing the role! These are the practical reasons to externalize the internal.

But here is an even deeper artistic reason you want to externalize the internal, which is that often times when you’re not externalizing the internal it’s because you have not actually seen it yet in your own mind’s eye. Which means you are not yet fully serving your own creative vision of the movie, or getting your full talent onto the page. To understand how you can go about externalizing the internal in your own work, in this week’s podcast, we’re going to be looking at one of the best examples of this technique, There Will Be Blood.

International Screenwriters’ Association

MOONDANCERS WRITE US:

“I wanted to thank you for the wonderful opportunity to screen a sneak preview of our film at Moondance. So many wonderful things came out of that screening. It was especially great to have Bill Ury, author of Getting to Yes, and Randy Compton, and Mark Gerzon, Author of American Citizen, Global Citizen: How Expanding Our Identities Makes Us Safer, Stronger, Wiser – And Builds a Better World. They were both very enthusiastic about the film and we look forward to further collaboration with them. We also loved all the great feedback we got on the Audience Comments forms: “I think it’s awesome” “I love his story, mission, tenacity and love for the future!” “The world will be a better place because Garry was in it.” “Needs to get out into the world. It will shift consciousness.” “Like, it’s about time!” In addition to accolades, the audience feedback forms also gave us valuable suggestions for further improving our work-in-progress version. — which we incorporated into later edits of the film. Several funders also loved the film – we received important donations in Boulder – also building excellent prospects for the future. So again, thank you for who you are and all you do for the world.” ~ Arthur Kanegis, director of The World Is My Country

“I find these (Moondance news-blog) articles so helpful. Thank you for caring enough to help us first-time screenwriters!” ~ Kentrell Liddell

“If you hadn’t recognised there was something of merit about my stageplay. “Stitched Up”, the production wouldn’t have happened, so, on behalf of Mr Nibbs, Rags, their wonderful palace colleagues, and, of course, myself, many, many thanks for that.” ~ Celine Gibson, award-winning playwright, New Zealand

DO A DOODLE!

By Lou Hamilton

A blank page and a pen is ripe territory for doodling and if you do it while your brain is apparently attending to something else, your ability to broaden your creative thoughts and ideas, make sense of and retain what you are listening to, is hugely increased. “In decision-making, problem-solving and creative thinking we need to engage with at least two of the four learning processes: auditory, visual, reading/writing and kinetic. So in a lecture or in class or on the phone, where information density is high, doodling, simple shapes, mind-maps, grids, nothing tricky, but the act of doodling allows (one) to explore…thoughts, by placing words into the shapes has the benefit of exploiting…decision-making, problem-solving and creative thinking we need to engage with at least two of the four learning processes: auditory, visual, reading/writing and kinetic. Which is why (doodling) is so effective!

The shapes, along with your hand movements, stimulate parts of the brain that allow you to make connections between things that you otherwise would likely have never come up with. It helps you tap into your memory, your emotions, your desires, your intellect….a way of aiding learning, processing, problem-solving, creative thinking and remembering.

Sunni Brown, named one of the “100 Most Creative People in Business” and one of the “10 Most Creative People on Twitter” by Fast Company, is the leader of “The Doodle Revolution” the purpose of which is to “disrupt social norms about visual language and visual thinking, and educate people around the world about doodling’s power and potential.” Using deliberate pen strokes and a vocabulary of abstract patterns, artists and non-artists alike are equally able to focus on their marks with no pre-determined end result, while their attention shifts “to a state that allows fresh thoughts, new perspectives, and creative insights to flow unhindered by anxiety or effort.”Zentangle… is a form of combined doodling and meditation, devised by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts in 2004 as an elegant system of structured patterns for zoning out. READ MORE

MOONDANCE SUPPORTS & RECOMMENDS:

“Yellow River Mother” sculpture, by He E, Gansu

The Yellow River is called “the cradle of Chinese civilization”, because its basin was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilization, and is the third-longest river in Asia. Water is the source of ten thousand species, of rich and varied topography and biological species, and the feeding, nourishing, and our civilization. The river is the mother, nurturing the luxuriant creatures & is a natural parent. Human economic and social development has entered a new historical period, and river and water are faced with unprecedented crises and challenges. The Yellow River is one of several rivers that are essential for China’s very existence.

We have a responsibility to have an obligation to action, with reason, courage and strong faith, to maintain the health of the Chinese mother river of life… maintaining river health, life, and river ethics. The CYRF makes the most of the advantages of this non-governmental organization, to promote Chinese civilization, inherit the Yellow River culture, take actions to protect the Mother River, and to involve more people in devoting their time and resources to the protection and maintenance of the endless life of the vital Yellow River. Our mission is: Carrying out regular activities toward the Yellow River protection, and to promote long-term maintenance of the healthy life of the Yellow River. The Yellow River is 5,464 kilometers long, with a total elevation drop of 4480 meters. READ MORE

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A World Without Florida Panthers?

They’re the last of their kind!A mere 180 Florida panthers are all we have left. When we allow places like the Florida Everglades to be torn apart, whittled down and chopped up for commercial purposes, we all lose more than just our beloved landscapes. We lose the migratory pathways the Florida panther and many other animals depend on for survival. Without intact migration corridors, these great cats can’t reach the additional habitat they need in order to survive as a species. They’re trapped and isolated…with nowhere to go to establish healthy populations and thrive. These lands are critical to the recovery of this iconic species and a cornerstone in the plan to support their survival.

Your donation today will help The Nature Conservancy’s vital work to protect and create habitats for threatened animals like the Florida panther — among too many others — who are simply running out of time. You’ll know that your dollars will be hard at work in endangered places like the Everglades. The Nature Conservancy is working to protect 18,529 acres of prime panther habitat that could help make a difference in securing their future. Thank you for helping to protect the lands and waters on which great migrations depend! http://www.nature.org

A World Without Sea Turtles?

Hawksbill Turtle

Imagine travelling more than 1,000 miles, through danger and hunger and hardship…only to find your destination washed away. Too often, that’s the fate waiting for hawksbill sea turtles at the end of their long migrations. They risk their lives only to find that their habitats have been destroyed and they’re left with nowhere to go. It’s a tragic end to an incredible journey. Today the Pacific nesting beaches hawksbills rely on are in grave danger. Development and sea level rise are shrinking them fast. And as the hawksbill populations are now a mere 20% of what they were 100 years ago, we have to fight for them to make sure that number doesn’t get any lower.

The truth is sad and simple: if more nesting beaches continue to disappear…so will hawksbills. If you’ve ever seen a sea turtle swim, you know it’s like flying under water. They coast along with so much grace, it would make anyone feel peaceful and calm. But their effortlessness hides one of the toughest survival stories on our planet. They’re up against predators, poachers, developers, climate change, and so much more. These animals do everything they can to survive in such desperate conditions, and right now, they need our help. Your gift will help with hands-on conservation like: helping expand the network of protected beaches for hawksbills, bringing together communities to safeguard their beaches & creating more turtle conservation sites so they can finish their migrations in peace. http://www.nature.org

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

Sculpture by Christopher David White

“You do not make sculpture because you like wood. You make sculpture because the wood allows you to express something that another material does not allow you to do.” ~ Louise Bourgeois, French-American artist (This quote can be extrapolated to include creative writing, filmmaking, music, dance, theater, & other arts)

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Mermaid figurehead by Jan Reichard

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

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THE CATCH-22 OF ORIGINALITY:

“WOLF TOTEM”, Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud

“Film audiences crave originality – or at least a fresh take – and so it seems do movie distributors. And yet film financiers tend toward the tried and tested. They want to back name actors, proven concepts and known quantities.” Hear from two leading film sales agents how they go about resolving that eternal contradiction: http://info.slated.com/the-catch-22-of-originality/

STUDIO-TYPE COVERAGE OF YOUR SCRIPT OR FILM!

7SEAS PRODUCTIONS

Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track? 7seas Productions now offers script reading services, critiques, coverage and edits to all screenwriters, playwrights & filmmakers, and to production companies and agencies, at special discount prices!

Focusing on the elements crucial to creating a compelling and readable script, and/or a winning, marketable film, our helpful comments will allow you to concentrate on solving the problems that will make your material move toward receiving a CONSIDER or a RECOMMENDED from a studio or production company reader, and will assist in advancing your script or film up toward WINNER in screenwriting competitions & film festivals.

An advantage of this low-cost critique service is that we will help you prepare your screenplay before sending it to screenwriting competitions, film producers, agents, managers and others who may have requested it. READ MORE

BAREFOOT COLLEGE, entrepreneurial skill-building designed by and for rural poor, illiterate & semi literate women around the world

HELP SAVE THE MOONBIRD!

BAN MICROBEADS!

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

ALLIES AND ENEMIES

The writer’s journey

by Amy Wheeler, Executive Director and alumna

Writers have different ideas about when to share our work with others, and for good reason! Before you share fresh pages or a new draft, your writing belongs to you. There are no other voices in your head, no opinions clouding your vision. But because we don’t write for ourselves alone, there comes a time when the perspective of others is valuable. The key is knowing when and how to solicit feedback, and from whom.

Cultivating a circle of allies you can share your fresh writing with is essential. Allies, your trusted readers, are eager to help you realize your vision of your story. They ask questions that spark “aha’s”, or respond to your questions in ways that are helpful and constructive. Allies are not just cheerleaders and fans of your work, they are catalysts, challenging you to go deeper, to be more clear and honest and rigorous as you hone your story.

Here’s an important distinction: it’s not just what your allies share, it’s how they share it that matters. The way feedback is given can open your process up, or shut it down. If you’ve ever endured a “free for all” feedback session, with responders offering their blunt opinions, or pontificating about how they’d write your story, you know how devastating that experience can be.

As an antidote, I heartily recommend a model for constructive feedback, developed by choreographer Liz Lerman and used widely by the theatre community for new play development. Based on the premise that the best outcome from a feedback session is for the creator to want to go back to work, Lerman’s “Critical Response Process (CRP)” gives creator and responders the tools to make the session constructive and useful.

Now, about those “enemies”, who seem ready to jump at the chance to deconstruct your work: they only have the power you give them. So ignore them (easier said then done), or listen for that kernel of something that’s helpful, and let go of the rest. “Water off a duck’s back.”

Deconstructive feedback flows from jealousy and insecurity, from those who are afraid to take their own creative risks, or may be well meaning but inept. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the responder is a friend or family member, a fellow writer, a critic or reviewer, don’t allow anyone to throw you off course. This is your journey.

The director Hou Hsiao-Hsien has made a film rooted in martial arts, but with imagery and settings that make “The Assassin” feel almost painterly.

Photo courtesy of Spotfilm

Landscapes: In the Clouds

To create a sense of a time long past, Mr. Hou and his team traveled to locations in China that had changed little in decades. “We looked for higher-altitude places where modern soci ety hasn’t come in,” he said. Mr. Hou and his team used the environment as part of the filmmaking as well. “We allowed the weather to change the content,” he said. “If it started snowing, we would not stop shooting.” The camera relishes nature, holding on long takes of rustling trees with the sound of birds in the background. It was important to Mr. Hou for everything to seem natural and authentic: “If we shoot during the daytime, we will try to use natural lighting to light the colors of the room. If it’s at night, then the light should look as close to candlelight as possible.” READ MORE:

“The Assassin” is a stately action movie, graceful and slow-moving, with bursts of smoothly choreographed violence. Apart from those moments, the film unfolds almost like a series of exquisite paintings: landscapes and interiors composed with an exacting eye, every shape and color measured and placed according to a rigorous aesthetic. READ MORE:

Ridley Scott’s sci-fi Mars adventure, starring Matt Damon, is so consistent in its storytelling and coherent in its details that it breezes gloriously past some of its biggest and best questions.

Directing is more than choosing expressive shots and coaxing emotionally satisfying performances from actors. I worked with a director who likened the job to being a general. For any strong director (one who’s no mere hired hand), the shaping of the story, the casting, the creation and approval of sets and props, the details of costume and makeup, the sound design—in short, the movie’s over-all tone and style sense—are the director’s indirect handiwork. That’s exactly how Ridley Scott exercises his authority on “The Martian.” Scott, who’s in his seventies, puts on a virtuoso display of cinematic professionalism, aligning all the movie’s elements—visual and sonic, dramatic and thematic, human and material—to move ahead briskly and compactly, with the seeming unity of one meticulously designed and properly functioning machine.

The film is so consistent in its storytelling and coherent in its details, magnetically aligned according to the ideas and tastes of one person, that it breezes gloriously past some of its biggest and best questions. Of course, questions aren’t action or suspense but merely motives for the artist, prods for creation; filmmakers craft their work on the basis of the questions they choose to address—and the ones they ignore. Scott’s ideas and his skills mesh so happily that they sent this viewer nearly bouncing out into the street, propelled by a blast of cinematic pleasure that soon dissipated and left a hollow so big as to nearly swallow up the entire viewing experience. So what’s missing?READ MORE

RECOMMENDED ONLINE READING:

All living things – from the smallest microorganism to the largest vertebrate and redwood tree – are genetically related!

Travels in the Great Tree of Life is a fascinating, multimedia exhibition, from Yale University & the Peabody Museum of Natural History that explores the complex relationships that link all living organisms. For example, crocodiles and birds (the owl) are more closely related to one another than either is to mammals (the Gorilla); surprisingly, mushrooms are closer to humans than they are to plants; the common ancestor of all spiders & arachnids probably resembled the now extinct sea scorpions, fearsome aquatic predators; and the tiny Ruby-throated Hummingbird and the giant tyrannosaur are genetically related. Birds, it turns out, are just a highly divergent branch in the dinosaur tree! Read More

MOONDANCE RECOMMENDS & SUPPORTS:

Our dedication to listening to the communities we serve has resulted in an innovative cooperative curriculum curated by communities called ENRICHE. 13 Barefoot Engineers Solar Electrify 600 Households in Zanzibar and Become Master Trainers. The 13 original women trained through the Barefoot College came back to Zanzibar transformed; ready to teach and share their knowledge and skills. They have created a revolution that is bringing renewable energy and clean light to their neighbouring communities. On June 8th, Barefoot College opened the 1st of Six International Regional Training Centres entirely focused on technology transfer, vocational and entrepreneurial skill-building designed by and for rural poor illiterate & semi literate women. As you read this, our workshops are teaching women reproductive health, self awareness, basic digital IT skills, environmental stewardship, human and civil rights, micro-enterprise skills, income generation capacity building and more…READ MORE

“By opening six training centers, we will train mature women to be capable and confident solar engineers to fill a basic and critical need for reliable energy in African villages. These Solar Mamas of Africa will become competent, confident and able to scale technology themselves to raise quality of life for all.” ~ Bunker Roy, Founder of the Barefoot College

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Photo by philliphoose.wordpress.com

This is the moment when Moonbird’s incredible migration will continue…or end. In this moment, at the place where this tiny bird stops to refuel during an epic journey, it’s survival — and it’s species — hang in the balance. But you can protect endangered spaces that birds like this count on during their migrations. The Moonbird flies 18,000 miles every single year — from the Canadian Arctic to the tip of South America and back. It has made this marathon migration so many times over the past 22 years that it has flown farther than the distance to the moon!

And, unless we act now to protect the lands and waters where the Moonbird stops, exhausted and starving, it won’t be able to continue it’s journey much longer. In fact, every migration depends on resting grounds like Moonbird’s — and many of them are being torn apart. Moonbird’s resting grounds on the Delaware shore are just one critically endangered area. The sole reason it stops here is to feast on horseshoe crab eggs. Without them, Moonbird won’t be able to survive the rest of it’s migration. But the beaches where it could once find plentiful eggs are disappearing fast.

Microbeads, including those that are supposedly biodegradable, are in your body- and face-scrubs, toothpaste, as well in many other home cleaning and personal care products these days, but they are damaging and destroying our environment! Microbeads, when flushed down drains after a shower go into our water system, our city sewer systems, where these tiny beads cannot be filtered out, and they are eventually flushed into our streams, rivers, lakes, oceans and seas. Fresh-water and marine fish, mammals, reptiles and birds, all ingest these toxic microbeads and die. Delicate coral reefs are killed.

Scientists have found millions of microbeads in parts of the Great Lakes in the US, with the highest concentrations occurring near urban areas. Studies estimate that microbeads make up at least 20% of plastic pollution in some parts of the Great Lakes, which provide drinking water to millions. Once they are unleashed into our waterways, microbeads can make their way up the food chain. They absorb dangerous pollutants such as PCBs and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are already present from other toxic dumping in the marine environment. When fish, birds and other wildlife ingest these plastics, the harmful pollutants accumulate in species low in the food chain and are passed onto larger predators, eventually contaminating the fish and other wildlife species, including seafoods consumed by humans. Please encourage your governmental representatives to initiate an immediate ban on these deadly microbeads, and just stop purchasing or using ANY product that contains them!

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

“Amelia” photo by S.V.

“How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone!” ~ Gabrielle Chanel

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“Little keys can open big locks. Simple words can express great thoughts.” ~ William A. Ward

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Doodle by Lou Hamilton

“Fish for those subconscious inspirations as they swim up into your consciousness!” ~ Lou Hamilton

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Mahatma Gandhi’s glasses

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~ Helen Keller

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ADVERTISEMENT:

~ 7 S E A S • P R O D U C T I O N S ~

• Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track? 7seas Productions now offers script reading services, critiques, coverage and edits to all screenwriters, playwrights & filmmakers, and to production companies and agencies, at special discount prices!

• Focusing on the elements crucial to creating a compelling and readable script, and/or a winning, marketable film, our helpful comments will allow you to concentrate on solving the problems that will make your material move toward receiving a CONSIDER or a RECOMMENDED from a studio or production company reader, and will assist in advancing your script or film up toward WINNER in screenwriting competitions & film festivals.

• An advantage of this AFFORDABLE critique service is that we will gladly help you prepare your screenplay before sending it to screenwriting competitions, film producers, agents, actors, managers and others who may have requested it. READ MORE

At Moondance, we don’t just accept differences, innovations, creativity, independence, and uniqueness – we celebrate them, we support them, encourage & inspire them, and we thrive on them for the ultimate benefit of the international film industry, as well as for writers, filmmakers, composers, festival film audiences, and our world community.

If you won an award, but could not attend the event, and want to receive your Moondance Award, Award certificate, & a 2015 Moondance festival program, please use this option to pay only for postage to send it to you:

FILMMAKERS: Moondance International Film Festival is now an IMDb Qualifying Festival, granting all eligible film submissions (via Withoutabox), a fast-tracked title page on IMDb.com!

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Moondance 2016 wishes to celebrate the art of DRONE CINEMATOGRAPHY with our newest competition category, and offers an international venue for talented & innovative drone filmmakers from around the world to exhibit their winning work to film industry professionals and to the drone cinema fan audiences, at this world-class film festival.

Film director Tom Shadyac gave a fascinating Q&A at Moondance 2015 to an enthusiastic audience, participated in the productive networking & photo ops, and was presented with the Moondance 2015 Calypso Award!

“Let me know when the 2016 early, early, early-bird submissions can be sent. I’m itching to send you the “Sock Opera” feature screenplay. I love to write, but this is the first time I actually felt real joy when working on a project. Although animation is probably the most difficult category to break into, I think, after all these years, I may have found my bliss.” ~ Janice MacDonald, 2015 Moondance winner for “The Sock Opera” short musical screenplay

“I am sorry to have missed the 2015 festival, but I see that it was a great success! It is a wonderful service you offer to new writers and filmmakers who are trying to find a way into their chosen profession. I – for one – feel that your input and help has given me the confidence to keep writing, so thank you once again!” ~ Liz Falconer, 2015 winner, short screenplay, “One Door Closes”

NOTE TO SCREENWRITERS: Please, please do NOT put noises & sounds in all-CAPS in your spec screenplay! That formatting is only for final production scripts, when the funding is in place & the Foley editor needs to know what sound effects to include. Your script should be, at this early stage, a reader’s script. All-caps on sounds are very distracting from a smooth read. We certainly already know that a door SLAMS, a gun goes BANG, a dog BARKS, a lion ROARS, cars HONK or CRASH, FOOTSTEPS make a sound & so on! If you are seeing all-caps on sounds in scripts that you may be reading online, you are looking at director’s scripts, or production scripts! To sell this sucker to an agent, actor, producer, director, funder, or distributor, it needs to read almost like a scripted novel. To send out a production script is egotistical, arrogant & un-professional, as if the film is already in production. I have passed on way too many otherwise pretty good spec scripts that are filled with all-caps sounds, in the festival competition.

RADIO PLAYS ARE MIND-MOVIES!

Radio is sometimes known as the writer’s favorite medium; as Malcolm Bradbury once said, it is “a world made with words shaped into being, without a physical presence.” With radio, you have to use your imagination – something you don’t need when watching TV or movies. We can be whom-ever we want to be, travel wherever we want to go; all in “our mind’s eye”, thanks to radio programs. The stories and scenarios are often planted forever in our memories and in our own personal “theatre of the mind”.

Radio drama has long been a fertile training ground for writers and is a genre in which screenwriters, playwrights and television writers feel at home. It has given voice to generations of writers. From Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and Irish writer Samuel Beckett to Orson Welles and American playwright Harold Pinter; all have been involved with radio drama.

Moondance includes audio drama in our competition categories not merely in order to get the attention of the film industry. We want to promote audio drama for it’s own cultural value, and to encourage writers, storytellers, musicians/composers, audio producers, voice actors & others to create new works for radio & digital listening…whether it’s drama, comedy, kids’ stories, news & info, or documentary, and getting people to use their imaginations, to see the story in their minds, & to visualize, rather than have it shown to them in film, on their digital devices, online, or on TV, while they just sit there, being only consumers, rather than being creators or using their imagination to visualize the story! Consider learning how to write for radio, and revising your screenplay into an audio play! Moondance is dedicated to ensuring that audio drama remains an integral and dynamic part of our international broadcasting and cultural heritage.

Friends of the Earth understands that the challenges facing our planet call for more than half-measures, so we push for radical change, not tweaks to the status quo. This means speaking uncomfortable truths to power and demanding more than people think is possible. It’s hard work. That’s why we’re dedicated to building and organizing a workforce for Earth. Earth H.Q. is an action center where you can tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our planet and discover practical, meaningful ways that all of us can work together to fix them. Let’s get to work! https://earthhq.foe.org

Let’s assume for a moment that you’re a great writer, which you likely are… How far has your talent alone gotten you? There are thousands of talented writers creating excellent stories right now in Hollywood…So what is it that separates the great writer who gets projects made from the also-great writer who has a bunch of unsold scripts sitting on the shelf? A professional writer becomes so when he or she learns how to be part of the business of entertainment and drive his or her own projects forward (not waiting around to be ‘discovered’). Talent is the minimum barrier to entry in entertainment… the real measure of your success is how effective you (the creator) are at building a marketable package for your project. Countless brilliant screenwriters and filmmakers never get their projects made because they don’t understand the importance of packaging their project in a way that speaks to the people who write the checks…

I hope this free report helps you to drive your project forward and attract the attention it needs in order to get made — and maybe you and I can work on a project together in the future! Do great things! When you download the report above, I’m also going to give you free access to our popular video training course, “Making the Power Move from Amateur to Pro”, featuring over 4 hours of training from high-powered executives from HBO, CAA, Alcon Entertainment, Wes Craven, the Weinsteins, Dimension Films and others, who are finally spilling their most honest insights on what it takes to get their attention, build a reputation and get your material noticed and bought again and again. In the past, I’ve sold this course for $297, but today I am giving it to you for free!

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

“I CHOOSE…To live by choice, not by chance. To make changes, not excuses. To be motivated, not manipulated. To be useful, not used. To excel, not compete. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice, not the opinions of others. I choose to be myself, not someone else’s idea of me.” ~ Author Unknown

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“Here are two options: Make progress or make excuses.” ~ Anonymous

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Vincent Van Gogh, “Wheat-field with Crows”

“The true artist reveals the unseen, and creates that which is new and uniquely his or her own,” ~ Ralph Ellison(excerpted & edited)

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“It does not generally take much strength to do something, but it often requires great strength to decide what to do.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

~~~ RULES FOR THE BLUES ~~~

Howlin’ Wolf

Most Blues begin, “Woke up this mornin’…”

“I got a good woman,” is a bad way to begin the Blues, ‘less you stick something nasty in the next line, like “I got a good woman with the meanest face in town.”

The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes … sort of: “Got a good woman – with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher – and she weigh 500 pound.”

The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch: You stuck in a ditch, ain’t no way out.

Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, adulthood means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

Blues can take place in New York City, but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St.Louis, and Kansas City still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don’t get rain.

A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cuz you skiing is not the blues.

Breaking your leg cuz a’ alligator be chomping on it is.

You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

Good places for the Blues: lonesome dirt road or highway, jailhouse, empty bed

No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, ‘less you happen to be a’ old black man, and you slept in it.

Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if: you’re older than dirt, you’re blind, you shot a man in Memphis, you can’t be satisfied.

No, if: you have all your teeth, you were once blind but now can see, the man in Memphis lived, you have a retirement plan or trust fund.

Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: bad wine, bad whiskey or bad bourbon, muddy water, black coffee. The following are NOT Blues beverages: mixed drinks, kosher wine, Snapple, sparkling water.

If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse, and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match, in a spa or hot-tub, or while getting liposuction.

Some Blues names for women: Sadie, Big Mama, Bessie, Fat River, Dumpling. Some Blues names for men: Joe Willie, Little Willie, Big Willie. Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, and Rainbow can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

Make yer own Blues name (starter kit): name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.) first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.) last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc.

I don’t care how tragic your life is: if you own a computer or cell-phone, you cannot sing the blues. You best destroy it – with fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or get out a shotgun. Maybe your big woman just done sat on it.

Take a look inside the Moondance photo album! (Click below)

A listing of your script on InkTip so that producers and reps can find you. InkTip helps writers sell their scripts and get representation. Producers have made more than 200 films from scripts and writers they found through InkTip!

STUDIO-TYPE COVERAGE OF YOUR SCRIPT OR FILM! Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track?

Moondancer Endorsement!

I was contacted by a sales company, Circus Road Films and by a distribution company named Silverline Entertainment. Both found my film on the Moondance roster and requested a screener, which I sent them. One of the things I liked reading about Moondance is your investment not only in the festival itself, but in helping filmmakers get through industry doors - which has been tough, to say the least. Thanks for curating an important and much-needed festival. As a woman director, the added hurdles I face daily can feel insurmountable, and your work keeps women like me going. ~ Ela Their, director, “Tomorrow Ever After”, screening at Moondance 2016

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